Ugly People Beautiful Hearts by Marlen Komar: Book Review

Synopsis: Ugly People Beautiful Hearts is a poetry book with over 70 poems that explores loneliness, quiet sadness, bursts of happiness, and contentment over the fact that everything you have, will eventually go okay. But that’s sort of beautiful in its own right.

It has verses moving between the feelings of loving someone, feeling loss, trusting the night sky, losing your light, resolving that hurt is beautiful, and finding compassion in a stranger’s smile.

Date Published: March 13, 2015

Publisher: Self-Published

No. of Pages: 96 pages

Date Read: May 16, 2015

Source: Provided by the Author. 🙂

REVIEW:

Achingly beautiful.

Wow. Just wow. Let me find the perfect words to describe this poetry book. It was just amazing, spot-on, raw and real. I have found a favorite. This poetry book is easily on my top list of poetry books. It was just, ugh! I cannot give justice to how good it was. And I can’t thank Marlen herself for giving me a copy of her incredible book. I definitely see myself rereading the whole thing over and over. The book was able to paint, heartbreaks, courage, the beauty of life, the silver lining in every sadness, so vividly and so accurate you can easily put yourself inside it. That every hurt and pain is universal, that there is beauty in pain and there is always hope. If you enjoyed Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan and the works of Lang Leav and Sarah Kay you will surely love this book. I cannot recommend it enough!

It is not so often that I review poetry books, I wouldn’t want to ruin the beauty of it and yes my words may not give it the justice it deserves, but this poetry book is just so beautiful that I could not pass the opportunity to be able to tell the world about it. I loved how it was written with overflowing emotions that you could not help but nod your head. What is more amazing about this poetry book is that, it is like telling your own story but through the words of another, but the emotions, the realizations, the subtle hints, the epiphany, the realness of it all are all there, poking your heart making you feel everything all over again.

I think I tabbed 80% of the book, and it is so hard to choose my favorite piece. But here it is.

Chance Meeting Over Coffee

And I have this one coffee shop I go to, a couple of blocks from my apartment. The lights inside are as warm as the din of chatter from people bent over chapter books, quietly trading papers as they murmur about future Sundays. Coats hug the backs of chairs and a few mittens lay discarded under tables, hopefully not forgotten. But I, I always keep my coat on.

I hold my cup with both hands, watching the dust dance in the rays of light breaking onto my table. I look up and you approach me, as I thought you would, eventually.

“I think we’ve met before.” “I think you’re right.”

“You always put my coffee mugs back on the wrong shelf, if I remember right.”

“And stain the rims with berry reds from my lips.”

“That part I didn’t mind all that much.”

I smiled.

“I think one time I fell asleep on your shoulder, with my feet over yours on the coffee table.”

‘You were wearing my wool socks.”

“You might be right.” I shifted in my chair, trying to fight the urge to look out the window. “I think I used to sit on windowsills, keeping the afternoon company; eating strawberries and thinking of you.” I crossed my feet at the ankles, looked up at you. “That probably sounds silly.”

“I’m not sure why,” you said slowly, weighing your words, “but for whatever reason I think I remember how your eyes looked at one o’clock, when the night was not yet ready for morning to come.”

“That’s a peculiar thing to say.”

“Yea you’re right.” You paused. Then continued.

“Were you the one that used to use hardcover books as coasters? And put rosemary in vases like flowers?” You smiled, trying to place the girl. “Wait, was it you that danced with me in the kitchen? To the sound of the dishwasher running and the color draining from the sky?”

“It might have been. Maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“Well…”

“Well. I should be going then. Maybe sometime later we’ll see each other again. Things might be different. I’m sure it’ll come to me how I know you.”

“You know how these things are.”
You waved goodbye with your paper, and I watched your back leave the shop. Funny, how some strangers were once apart of your life.

ABOUT ME

EUNICE MORAL is a bookstagrammer and a blogger with a soul of a poet. Most days you can find her hunkered down in a corner reading the day away, and some days you can find her writing poems on the back of an old receipt. She lives for English Breakfast tea lattes and secondhand bookshops. Over the years she had developed a penchant for weird stories and troubled souls.

You can reach her at @nerdytalks_04 on twitter and email is moraleunice@gmail.com